Uranus And Neptune Research Paper

The rare geometric arrangement of Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune which occurs in every 176 years gave the hint and encouragement to the scientist that the voyage to the outer planets is possible both economically and scientifically as that layout allows a spacecraft to swing from one planet to next by increasing its velocity enough to deliver it to the next destination courtesy of gravitational slingshot. Originally, the scientist at the NASA proposed the “Grand Tour” of the outer planets which included the launch of 4 spacecraft at Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto in 1976-77 and Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune in 1979 , two at a time, but due to the budget constraints the overwhelmed project was cut down to only 2 spacecraft launched for …show more content…
Many problems arose in the Voyager 2. NASA cited the primary cause of the initial problems were due to the commanding by the AACS. Again in April 1978, Voyager 2’s primary radio receiver failed, automatically kicking in the backup receiver which proved to be faulty. Though, Engineers finally found the way to workaround. According to the Database of NASA, Voyager 2 flew by Jupiter, closest approach on 09 july 1979, and Saturn, 26 August 1981, obtaining the images about 18000 at Jupiter and 16000 at Saturn which was equal to the numbers of images obtained by Voyager 1. Despite many difficulties arose in the Voyager 2, it was granted to extend the mission, first to Uranus, then Neptune and later to past the Neptune. As NASA recorded, Voyager 2 made successful flybys of Uranus (24 January 1986) and Neptune (25 August 1989) obtaining about 8000 images of Uranus and its satellites and about 10000 images of Neptune and its satellites. At the moment, Voyager 2 is speeding away from the Sun at a velocity of about 3.13 AU/year toward a point in the sky of RA=338 degrees, Dec=-62 degrees (-47.46 degrees ecliptic latitude, 310.89 degrees ecliptic longitude) as per the observation made by …show more content…
The launch was delayed twice to prevent the occurance of the problems as in Voyager 2. Although launched later, Voyager 1’s trajectory was the quicker one to Jupiter. According to NASA, On 15 Dec. 1977, while both spacecraft were in the asteroid belt, Voyager 1 surpassed Voyager 2's distance from the Sun. Voyager 1 then made the closest approach to Jupiter on 05 March, 1979 and to Saturn on 12 November, 1980 obatining about 18000 images of Jupiter and its satellites and 16000 images of Saturn and its ring and the satellites. Then Voyager 1 went into the doramancy for about 9 years , turning the camera on on 14 Feb, 1990 to take the series of pictures. As per NASA, Voyager 1 looked back from whence it came and took the first "family portrait" of the solar system, a mosaic of 60 frames of the Sun and six of the planets (Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) as seen from "outside" the solar system. After this final look back, the cameras on Voyager 1 were once again turned off. At the moment , Voyager 1 is speeding away from the Sun at a velocity of about 3.50 AU/year toward a point in the sky of RA= 262 degrees, Dec=+12 degrees (35.55 degrees ecliptic latitude, 260.78 degrees ecliptic longitude).
Each Voyagers carried the following instruments:
1. 1.Plasma spectrometer (PLS) which measures velocity, density, and pressure of plasma ions
2. 2.Low-energy charged particles (LECP) experiment

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